50 Chilling Unsolved Mysteries From The 1960s And The Stories Behind Them

The 1960s may be remembered as a glorious era where stars honed the art of the cool, and rock 'n' roll came into its own with some of the greatest anthems in human history. However, it was also when the Vietnam War ripped America in half, and Jim Crow laws continued to haunt the south.

Many of the unsolved cases from the 1960s are gruesome, brutal stories of killers disappearing into the night, but they also feature UFOs, presidential assassinations, and escapes from maximum security prisons.

These chilling stories from the 1960s have never been resolved, and many of the cases remain open. Hopefully one day they'll be solved.

Operating in Northern California throughout the late '60s and into the '70s, the Zodiac Killer was an anonymous serial killer who is believed to have killed at least five people. However, there are some people who believe that Zodiac has a bodycount of up to 37 people. This unsolved case only becomes stranger when you factor in the taunting messages in the form of ciphers delivered to the press. The ciphers feature numbers, letters, and symbols that have only recently been cracked.

A classic harbinger of doom, the Mothman was a cryptic that haunted the residents of Point Pleasant, West Virginia throughout the late '60s. This creature was believed to be a humanoid with burning red eyes and giant moth wings that tended to show up when something awful was about to happen.

In December 1967, the Silver Bridge in Mason County, West Virginia collapsed, killing 46 people. Many people believe that this super destructive moment was caused by the Mothman as the cryptid stopped appearing following the collapse. There are numerous theories about the Mothman, naming the creature as everything from a demon, to an alien, to precognitive vision.

On May 23, 1964, Jim Templeton and his 5-year-old daughter took a trip to Burgh Marsh, England. Templeton took three photos of his daughter, and when they were developed he discovered what looked like an astronaut standing in the background of one of the photos.

Templeton claims that after he sent the photo to the press two men who refused to show ID cornered him at his home to ask questions about his experiences. Nearly 60 years after the fact, it's unclear who the figure is behind Templeton's daughter.

When President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, on Friday, November 22, 1963, it was the end of an era and the beginning of a decades long conspiracy that we're still confounded by today. The official story is that Kennedy was shot by lone gunman Lee Harvey Oswald, but his murder at the hands of nightclub operator Jack Ruby throws all of that into question.

Theories about the assassination of President Kennedy range from mafia payback, to the CIA, to communists trying to throw the United States into disarray. 

Labor Day 1969 was notable in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, but not because of an epic cookout. That day at least 40 people witnessed a UFO, and the Reed family were legally abducted by a "white orb" the size of a football field. The family tried to escape from the UFO via Covered Bridge Lane before they were zapped into the craft. While this abduction can't be proven, there is a monument to the abduction in Sheffield, Massachusetts.

On January 26, 1966, Jane, Arnna and Grant Beaumont (aged 9, 7, and 5) hopped on a bus to visit Glenleg Beach in South Australia. The last time anyone saw the children they were playing near the beach, but by the time their parents made it to the area to search for them they were long gone.

The police quickly put together a search of the area, and within a day the entire country was keeping their eyes out for these children. Reports placed the children with a tall man with light brown hair, but that tip never came to anything. Two years after the disappearance a series of letters arrived at the Beaumont family's home from Dandenong, Victoria. In 1992, forensic evidence revealed that the letters were fake. To this day the children have never been found.

On December 9, 1965, people from across six states including Pennsylvania and Michigan as well as Windsor, Ontario witnessed a fireball streaking across the sky. The people of Kecksburg, a town 30 miles away from Pittsburgh saw plumes of blue smoke and went intense vibrations before the craft crashed into the woods. There are a number of theories about what the object was, from an acorn shaped craft to a meteor bolide, but it could have also been fragments from a Soviet satellite. To this day it's not entirely clear what crashed in the woods near Kecksburg.

One of the strangest unsolved mysteries of the 1960s is the Overtown Bridge near Dumbarton in West Dunbartonshire, Scotland designed by H.E. Milner. This specific bridge became known as the "Dog Suicide Bridge" when the death rate of dogs leaping to their death hit one per year beginning in the '50s. No one knows the motive behind these canine suicides but now there is a sign that reads: "Dangerous bridge – keep your dog on a lead."

The sleepy burg of Exeter, New Hampshire, became a hotspot of UFO activity on September 3, 1965, when a local teenager and two police officers witnessed five flashing bright red lights in the sky. As he made his way closer to the lights he realized that they were attached to a craft floating silently in the sky. At the area of the sighting officers spoke with multiple people who witnessed the craft, and while skeptics abound everyone who witnessed the craft insist that they saw a true UFO and not a weather balloon, spy plane, or anything else man made.

Known for the hit song "I Fought the Law," Bobby Fuller was found dead in his car outside of his Los Angeles apartment on July 18, 1966. His face, chest, and side were covered in 'petechial hemorrhages,' likely from gasoline vapors. The coroner report features question marks next to the boxes for "accident" and "suicide," leading some theorists to believe that Fuller fell victim to foul play.

Sure this happened in 1959, but that's basically 1960. On January 23, 1959, Igor Dyatlov and nine friends traveled through the treacherous terrain of Kholat Syakhl in the Ural Mountains. Much of the journey was fairly chill, but on February 1 something went horribly wrong. When the group camped out at the base of Kholat Syakhl something truly horrible happened.

On February 20, a search party discovered the Dyatlov camp. Their tents were cut open from the inside out, their film and cameras were thrown around the camp. The bodies of Dyatlov's group were strewn throughout the snow, and it took months for the rest of the bodies to be discovered. To this day no one knows what happened to the group but everything from a Yeti to UFOs to psychosis has been blamed for this unfortunate event.

On April 24, 1964, officer Lonnie Zamora claims that he came into contact with two extraterrestrial humanoids inside of a "shiny object" that quickly went airborne before shooting fire out of its engines. Zamora stated that the object resembled a balloon and went into pursuit just south of Socorro, New Mexico.

Zamora initially believed that the flames came from an explosion, but when he came upon the object he noted that it was "like aluminum—it was whitish against the mesa background, but not chrome."

The incident was investigated by Project Blue Book, the U.S. Air Force's group that specifically studies UFOs, and while they found Zamora's experience to be credible they were never able to figure out exactly what he observed.

Between 1964 and 1965, an unknown assailant carried out a series of gruesome murders across West London, England. The unknown man targeted ladies of the night just trying to make a buck, moving their clothing and leaving their bodies close to walkways in lovers lane areas as a way to taunt the police.

More than 7,000 suspects were interviewed by Scotland Yard, but out of all the men who were interviewed no one was ever arrested for the crimes.

Alcatraz is famous for being impossible to escape from. Not only was it a maximum security prison but it's located on a rock in the middle of the Pacific Ocean off the coast of San Francisco. In September 1961, the Anglin brothers (John and Clarence) formed a plan with fellow convicts Frank Morris and Allen West to escape Alcatraz.

The quartet made dummy heads to fool the night guards so they could make a break for things on June 12, 1962, through an unsecured vent. Two days after the escape the FBI discovered paddle-like pieces of wood and bits of rubber inner tube as well as a homemade life-vest on Cronkite Beach. No remains of the men have ever been found, and in the 17 years that the FBI was on the case they never found information relating to the escapees.

When Marilyn Monroe was found dead in her home in 1962 the case was ruled as a suicide, but it's unclear if that was actually the case. Discovered with a pharmacy's worth of pills in her home, theories abound as to the real cause of her death. Some theories of her death state that Robert Kennedy had her killed in response to her affair with JFK, while other theorists believe that the CIA had her killed to make the Kennedy family feel bad. Leaving the Kennedys out of it (thankfully), one theory that feels on the money is that her doctors overprescribed medication to Monroe and then staged her death as a suicide. Sadly, we'll never know the truth.

On October 22, 1966, The Sims family - Robert, Helen, and their daughter Joy - were found bound, gagged, stabbed, and shot in their Tallahassee, Florida home. Their eldest daughter, Norma, returned discovered her family when she returned home that night and ran to a funeral home where she placed a call to the police.

The crime scene was destroyed when Russell Bevis and his son Rocky made their way to the Sims home after Norma's phone call and attempted to loosen the bindings holding the three victims in place. Investigators were able to determine that the killer was likely known to the family, but without any leads the trail went cold.

On October 27, 1961, 19-year-old Betty Gail Brown was studying with friends at Transylvania College's Old Morrison building in Lexington, Kentucky. After her study session she went off by herself and she was later found strangled to death with her own bra inside her car.

The closest that the case has come to being solved came in 1965 when a man confessed to the crime, claiming that he had been drunk at the time. However, when the case went to trial the jury couldn't agree on whether he was telling the truth and he was set loose.

Beginning in 1968, a series of slayings across the University of Wisconsin-Madison were carried out by a mysterious killer. Between '68 and 1982, seven women - all with long hair - were strangled and stabbed by an assailant that's believed to be a serial killer, although there are members of the Madison police force who think that the crimes are unconnected.

Between 1959 and 1960, an unknown serial killer slaughtered at least six women in the Los Angeles area. Known as the "Bouncing Ball Killer," this maniac attacked older women, usually in their homes, before leaving them to die. While there have been multiple suspects for this crime no one was ever charged.

Known as "Little Miss Nobody," Sharon Lee Gallegos was only four-years-old when her remains were discovered in Congress, Yavapai County, Arizona on July 31, 1960. Gallegos was kidnapped from an alley near her home on July 21, 1960, by a couple in a "dirty, old green car." The children who saw the abduction immediately told their mother, who immediately told the police, but even when roadblocks at the Texas-New Mexico border the abductors escaped.

No one knows why the couple kidnapped Gallegos, but young people in the area stated that they saw the green car creeping around their neighborhood leading up to the kidnapping. Even after an extensive investigation no leads turned up as to the identity of the murderers.

On February 9, 1960, Adolph Coors III, the grandson of Adolph Coors and heir to the Coors Brewing Company empire was killed in an failed kidnapping attempt by Joseph Corbett Jr. on Turkey Creek Bridge near Morrison, Colorado. Even though the kidnapping attempt went awry, Corbett still sent a ransom letter to try and extort some cash out of the wealthy family.

Corbett was arrested in Vancouver, BC, after Coors' skull was discovered in a remote area near Pikes Peak. Corbett maintained his innocence throughout his trial, but he convicted of first degree murder on March 29, 1961, and sentenced to life in state prison. Released in 1980 for good behavior, Corbett died by suicide in August 2009.

Last seen on April 16, 1960, Irene Garza was a beauty queen and schoolteacher from McAllen, Texas. Her remains were discovered on April 21, 1960, and the authorities immediately looked to her priest, Father John Bernard Feit as their number one suspect.

Not only Feit was the last person to see Garza alive as he heard her final confession in his parish, but on the night of her death his fellow priests noticed that his confession line was moving incredibly slowly, and that he stepped out multiple times during his shift. Feit also had scratch marks all over his hands. When the McAllen police drained the canal where Garza's body was found they discovered his photo slide viewer.

Feit allegedly confessed the murder to his fellow priests before he was moved from parish to parish until he left the priesthood in the 1970s. Feit escaped prosecution until 2017 when he was sentenced to life in prison. He passed away from natural causes on February 17, 2020.

On January 6, 1960, National Airlines Flight 2511 was traveling from New York City to Miami, Florida when it exploded in mid-air. The five members of the crew and 29 passengers all perished. Although the investigation into this explosion remains open no one has ever been blamed for the bombing and no charges were filed. It's believed that suicide bombing is to blame, but no one knows for sure what happened in this tragic case.

On November 26, 1960, Larry Ralph Peyton and his girlfriend, Beverly Ann Allan vanished after making plans to visit the Lloyd Center in Portland, Oregon to do some shopping. The next day Peyton's Ford coupe was found in Forest Park with his mutilated remains inside. Allan's coat and purse were left inside the car but her remains weren't discovered for another two months until a highway crew found her decaying body in a ravine 30 miles away from the car.

Three men were accused of the vicious murders, but only Edward Jorgensen and Robert Brom went to trial for first-degree murder. In spite of their convictions each men served less than 10 years in prison. It's believed that both men were paroled so early into their sentences because the police didn't believe that they actually committed the crimes.

On August 9, 1961, Michele LeAnn Morgan was horrifically beaten and held beneath bathwater by her stepmother who believed that the four-year-old girl had lied during a conversation. The following day Morgan died from internal injuries. Even though an autopsy showed massive trauma to the girl's chest, the coroner reported the cause of death as pneumonia and a criminal case was never pursued.

It wasn't until 1996 that Morgan's brother discovered the discrepancy on the death certificate and reported his findings. After exhuming the young girl's body and discovering signs of child abuse still visible after 30 years authorities tracked Morgan's stepmother down to West Columbia, Texas, where she tried to flee the country. She served five years in prison for involuntary manslaughter.

In 1962, Paul Guihard was a French-British journalist for Agence France-Press covering James Meredith's attempts to enroll at the all-white University of Mississippi. When a riot broke out Guihard continued covering the story until he was shot in an darkened area near the southeast corner of the Ward Dormitory. In spite of FBI involvement no suspect was ever found.

On September 19, 1961, Betty and Barney Hill were returning home to New Hampshire from Niagara Falls when they were allegedly abducted by a group of humanoid extraterrestrials from the Zeta Reticuli system. Following the couple's abduction they returned home where Betty had a series of reoccurring dreams that laid out exactly what happened to her on the alien ship. After reporting their abduction to the military as well as NICAP the couple underwent hypnosis. While under hypnosis the couple's story varied only slightly from the previous version of their story, leading many UFOlogists to state that this is the most credible abduction story of the 20th century.

In the early 1960s Karyn Kupcinet was an up and coming actress who had numerous guest spots on programs like The Andy Griffith Show and Perry Mason, but her life was cut short six days after the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963.

Kupcinet's body was discovered in her home on November 28 by Lost in Space cast member Mark Goddard and his wife, Marcia, while performing a wellness check on the young actress. The couple had dinner with Kupcinet the night before and noticed that she was in a drugged out state. Initially believed to be a suicide, the coroner ruled her death a homicide by strangulation after discovering a fracture to the hyoid bone in her throat.

No one knows who killed Kupcinet, but theories abound as to who took her life. Some theorists believe that she was involved in a lover's quarrel gone very wrong, while other (more OTT) theorists believe that she's connected to the Kennedy assassination in some tangential way. Although there have been multiple suspects named in her death no one has ever been formally charged.

Louis Allen was simply trying to live his life when he was shot and killed on his front lawn on January 31, 1964. A Black man living in Liberty, Mississippi, Allen was no stranger to confrontation with racist creeps. After repeatedly attempting to register to vote he was harassed and jailed by the Amite County Sheriff's Department, something that bolstered his decision to get out of town. It's believed that Amite County Sheriff Daniel Bryant Jones killed Allen in cold blood, but he was never formally prosecuted.

Mary Pinchot Meyer was a painter living in Washington D.C. in the 1960s. She was married to CIA official Cord Meyer from 1945 - 1958, and afterwards began a romantic entanglement with President John F. Kennedy that ruffled more than a few feathers along the Beltway. After finishing a painting on October 12, 1964, Meyer took a walk along the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal towpath in Georgetown.

That evening mechanic who was fixing a car on the Canal Road heard a woman screaming for help before two gunshots rang out. He ran towards the sound, but by the time he arrived on the scene he only caught sight of a man standing over her body. 40 minutes after her death, D.C. police arrested Ray Crump, a Black man who was walking about a quarter mile from the murder scene.

There was no forensic evidence linking Crump to Meyer, no murder weapon was ever found, and Crump didn't have any of Meyer's blood on him in spite of the fact that she bled profusely. Theorists believe that Crump was set up by either the CIA or someone in the federal government, but no one knows why. This is one of the many horrible crimes connected to President Kennedy of which we'll never have all the answers.

On December 10, 1964, Frank Morris' shop, Frank's Shoes Service, was set on fire by two unidentified white men. Morris was a Black business owner living in Ferriday, Louisiana, at the height of segregation. The shop was opened in the 1930s, with Morris living above the shop.

Morris suffered burns to 100% of his body, and although he survived long enough to speak with the FBI he quickly fell into a coma and passed away on December 14, 1964.

Between 1965 and 1966 a series of four shootings rocked the Columbus, Ohio area. Three of the four shootings were fatal, and even though the Columbus Police Department plastered wanted signs and billboards across the area with a facial composite of who they believed was behind the trigger this case remains unsolved.

Born in 1930, Alberta Odell Jones was the first African-American women to pass the Kentucky bar and the first woman appointed city attorney in Jefferson County, Kentucky. She was a prominent member of the civil rights movement in Kentucky, and she made sure that Black citizens knew how to vote. On August 5, 1965, Jones' body was pulled from the Ohio River, and although her death was initially attributed to drowning that decision was quickly changed to murder once the police discovered her blood soaked car. Although witnesses state that they saw someone throw her body into the river the case remains unsolved.

On June 23, 1965, two police officers with the Houston Police Department visited the home of Charles Rogers, a seismologist and pilot, to perform a welfare check on his elderly parents. After entering the home the officers didn't notice anything strange until they checked the refrigerator and found the chopped up bodies of Rogers' parents. No one has ever been able to find Rogers, and in 1975 he was declared legally dead in absentia. Because this crime occurred in the 1960s, Rogers is - of course - connected to the assassination of President Kennedy.

Cheri Jo Bates was a college freshman at Riverside City College when she was stabbed to death on October 30, 1966 on the grounds of the campus. Theorists believe that Bates is the first victim of the Zodiac Killer, although this has been disputed by the RPD. Several suspects have been investigated since 1966, but the closest police have come to taking down a suspect is determining that the crime was committed by a Caucasian male.

On the evening of July 27, 1966, the body of 11-year-old Brenda Sue Brown was discovered in a wooded area covered in bloody leaves near downtown Shelby, North Carolina. That day she walked her younger sister to a Head Start class, but that was the last time she was seen alive. A bloody rock was found next to her crushed skull, but that's the only evidence that local authorities were able to turn up and the case has remained cold. There was an alleged deathbed confession made by Earl Mickey Parker in 2002, but with only one witness it's impossible to know what really happened.

On May 17, 1968, the body of Barbara Ann Hackmann Taylor was discovered near Georgetown, Kentucky wrapped in a tent like material. Her husband, George Earl Taylor, was the prime suspect in the case as he did not file a missing person report, and then told Barbara's family that she absconded with a new suitor. He passed away from cancer in 1987, never having been formally charged in the case. 

On December 30, 1968, Marina Elizabeth Habe was home in Los Angeles during Christmas vacation when was viciously murdered by an unknown assailant. She was abducted from West Hollywood, and her body was discovered with multiple stab wounds but with no leads the best the LAPD could do was sort of kind of connect her murder to the Manson Family.

On June 25, 1968, Richard and Shirley Robison as well as their four children; Ritchie, Gary, Randy, and Susan were shot and killed while on vacation in a cottage near Good Hart, Michigan. Shirley's body was posed to make the crime look like the murder was sexual in nature, but with 27 days between the murders and the discovery of the bodies of the family extreme decomposition set in and destroyed much of the evidence.

The single suspect in the crime was Joseph R. Scolaro III, an employee of Richard Robinson who was embezzling funds from his company. After failing multiple polygraph tests Scolaro committed suicide on March 8, 1973.

On the afternoon of November 28, 1969, Betsy Aardsma was stabbed a single time in the chest while standing in between rows 50 and 51 of the Stack Building of the Pattee Library in Penn State. Two students witnessed a man wearing khaki slack, a tie, and a sports jacket running away as Aardsma's body fell into a stack of books. The man was never identified, but it's believed that Penn State geology professor Richard Haefner was the culprit at the center of this senseless crime, however there are multiple suspects circling the cold case that make this murder all the more confounding.

In the early hours of January 7, 1969, Jane Britton was walking home from a neighbor's apartment on the Harvard campus when she was bludgeoned to death by an unknown assailant. When her body was discovered it had been sprinkled with red ochre powder, a substance used in burial ceremonies around the world. While serial killer Albert DeSalvo admitted to killing a woman in the same area a few years before, it's unclear if he had anything to do with this case. In 2018, Middlesex County authorities identified Michael Sumpter as a possible lead in the cold case, but as he passed away in 2001 there's no way to know for sure if he committed this awful crime.

On November 7, 1969, Catherine Cesnik disappeared after a day of shopping in a suburb of Baltimore, Maryland. A drama and English teacher at Archbishop Keough High School in Baltimore, her body wasn't discovered until January 3, 1970, in a remote informal landfill in the Landsowne area of Maryland. Many of Cesnik's former students believe that her unsolved murder has to do with a priest who was sexually abusing students at the school during her tenure. The Archdiocese of Baltimore has not responded to these claims.

In November 1969, 19-year-old Estonian-Canadian Reet Silvia Jurvetson was murdered in California but her body remained unidentified until 2015. The Manson Family was initially believed to be responsible for Jurvetson's death but the LAPD have stated that their suspect is an unidentified man named either "John" or "Jean." In 2016, Detective Luis Rivera stated:

More than likely she was unable to defend herself any other way other than to ... use her hands to either block the attack or actually grab on to the knife, so the way we see it is she was immobilized, probably on her back, and the person might have been on top of her as he was inflicting the wounds.

Joyce Malecki was an office worker in Baltimore, Maryland disappeared on November 11, 1969, and was found dead with her hands tied behind her back at the Soldier Park training area of Fort Meade. During the autopsy 15 superficial cuts were found across her body. Theorists believe that her death is connected to Catherine Cesnik although as of this writing no suspect has been named in connection to her death.

In 1960, eight-year-old Graeme Thorne was abducted and murdered after his parents, Bazil and Freda, won the Sydney Opera House lottery. The couple walked about with a £100,000 prize, but after their win was reported on in the local press their son was taken during his walk to school. The kidnappers asked for a £25,000 ransom, but when the boy's body was found in an empty lot in the Grandview Grove wrapped in a picnic blanket. The boy's killer attempted to flee the country, but was brought back to Australia and sentenced to life in a penal colony.

The body of Reyna Marroquín was discovered in a 55-gallon drum in the crawl space of a house in Jericho, Nassau County, New York, in 1999. After exhuming her remains coroners deduced that her cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head. Investigators discovered that that barrel belonged to an artificial flower manufacturing company partly owned by Howard B. Elkins. When Elkins was interviewed by the authorities he was uncooperative, one day later his body was found in the back of his car with a bullet wound in his head.

On December 14, 1969, 25-year-old Diane Maxwell was on her way to the Southwestern Bell building in Houston, Texas, but she never made it to work. Later in the day, William Bell saw a guy leaving a shack. When he investigated the small building he discovered the body of Maxwell and called the authorities. The case was periodically investigated throughout the '70s and '80s, but it wasn't until 2003 that lifetime criminal James Ray Davis was arrested on charges of first degree murder relating to Maxwell's murder.

On October 4, 1967, a large craft smashed into the waters of Shag Harbour, Nova Scotia, around 11:20 pm. More than 10 people saw a low-flying craft flying towards the harbor before hearing a loud bang when it hit the water. The object was never identified or found by the Canadian Coast Guard.

On April 6, 1966, students from Westall High School in Melbourne, Victoria, reported a silverish-green saucer shaped craft twice the size of a car flying over their school. 20 minutes after the event the craft was spotted again flying northwest under pursuit by five unidentified aircraft. UFOlogists are torn over whether this was an actual extraterrestrial sighting or if it was a runaway High-altitude balloon.

On July 1, 1965, French farmer farmer Maurice Masse claims to have come face to face with two small humanoids hanging out near their spherical ship. Masse says that the humanoids briefly paralyzed him with a "tube like" object. While he was frozen, Masse says that the beings were busy looking at the local foliage for a while before getting in their vehicle and taking off. No one has ever been able to corroborate Masse's story, but his wife believes that the encounter made him more of a spiritual person.